Courage-the True Trait of Leadership

Courage- The True Trait of Leadership

There have been many influential and successful people who have provided famous quotes on what they feel the definition of leadership is. In their own way, they are all correct, as their view of leadership comes from what they have experienced in their life in order to make that determination. Most of them agree that the qualities of a good leader contains people skills, integrity and honesty. Of course there are thousands more depending on who you talk to, however; there is one trait of leadership that ties all of the other traits together. It is the one quality that is absolutely essential for a manager to have to ensure a successful organization. This leadership trait is courage. If one does not have the courage to stand up and be a leader, then all of the other great leadership qualities within that person will become useless.

Robert Staub wrote “The most critical component of success in the whole-hearted framework is the presence or absence of courage. Without it, success is not possible, leadership will not exist, and personal satisfaction is extinguished” (Staub, Web). This is a very powerful quote that not all people may agree with but it cannot be dismissed. A person’s leadership can only be as strong as the person’s courage to be a leader. Every leader will be faced with situations that require them to “step up” and lead. Only a strong leader will face these situations with courage, even though they know that there will be adversity and challenges that they will have to face along the way.

Every leader has the capacity to be courageous. Most people learn at early ages what it takes to have courage. Everyone in life has a fear of something that they have overcome because of courage. An example is a fear of spiders. One might have been afraid of spiders as a child until one day when their friends were picking spiders up from the ground to play with them. This put the child who was afraid at ease and eventually,...